Easter Egg Entertainment

8:00 AM

With Easter fast approaching, there are tons of ideas for using Easter Eggs. However, we use Easter Eggs all year long for playing and learning. Why? Because I refuse to throw away, perfectly good eggs just to buy new ones the next year. Hence, I have a diaper box full of different colored and designed plastic eggs that I bring out to use for counting, simple math, color recognition, matching, patterns, tossing and much more!

This year I could not wait to see what fun things I could do with my year old and six year old. I did not want this month to be about learning with the eggs I wanted more of a relaxed fun play for them. Therefore, I brought out the growing collection of Easter Eggs and set out to create fun ways to entertain my kids with very little interaction from me.

I have to admit I have to have my hands into some type of craft with the kids however once the creating was over I let them play on their own. These fun noisemakers were created with left over plastic spoons, rice, and dry beans filled plastic eggs, taped together and shaken for fun.

My kids love hiding stuff inside the eggs. They both enjoy finding items in their rooms that will fit in the egg and then the other sibling has to try to guess what it is. This also makes for a selection of different sounds used along with the egg rattles. It can become quite noisy in my house when they play this game.

I know I said no educational games but the kids really do enjoy playing this game. My toddler understands that she rolls the dice and says numbers while placing the little yellow eggs inside the bunny. My kindergartener understands the whole idea and tries to help his sister to count on her turn. He is strengthening his math skills while gaining the confidence to help his sister. How cool is that for a free game!!!

Fill the bucket with eggs. Dump the eggs. Fill the bucket. Dump the eggs. I know you get it. So simple yet my kids will play this game for hours! No kidding HOURS!!!

Find the bunnies! I bury them in the grass and the kids find them, they then bury the bunnies for each other and take turns finding the yellow and pink flexible bunnies. They also fill the eggs with the fake grass and make a mess with the grass, which leads to another game I like to call...PICK UP THE GRASS! I throw in two pairs of kids plastic tweezers and have them pick the grass from the carpet...THEY LOVE IT! Seriously, my toddler will purposely throw the grass onto the rug and say "weezers mama". This helps work on fine and gross motor skills, cognitive thinking, working together and imaginative play.

Another simple way to entertain my kids is to give them eggs that nest into each other. They are working on size recognition and independent play. So simple and yet it does so much for them without being directed to learn. Bonus they are so quite while they are concentrating on which egg fits inside the next.

Decorate the basket with ribbons and collect eggs. I simply cut different types ribbon in varying lengths for the kids to tie onto the handle of the basket. This is great for hand-eye-coordination, fine and gross motor skills and finger dexterity.

The game I love the most is hide the eggs. This keeps my kids busy while I get things around the house accomplished. I will wait until they are involved in something else and place eggs in easy, hard and moderately hard places so both kids have fun playing. I have also put glove sticks in the eggs and turned out all the lights for the kids to find glowing eggs. The bonus of this was they got so tired out that at bedtime there was no struggle.

As simple, as some of these ideas are they are compacted with learning and skill building benefits for my kids. They have no idea that they are learning while they are playing. I enjoy watching my kids play these games together. I get to see their growth in themselves and helping each other. They bond so much over a few simple plastic eggs, which sends me in complete aww of them.